Arnold Schwarzenegger wants Conan O'Brien to make the “SNL” Hans and Franz movie
Arnold Schwarzenegger is pumped up about the idea of a Hans and Franz movie.
The actor and former professional bodybuilder appears on the upcomng episode of the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, where he encourages the host to make the scrapped film about Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon's Saturday Night Live bodybuilder brothers, for which he serves as inspiration. In EW's exclusive first look at his podcast appearance below, Schwarzenegger divulges that he enjoyed the recent episode where O'Brien & Co. read lines from the opening scene of the unproduced screenplay.
"It was so funny. There's no comedy movie, to be honest with you, that I have laughed that much [at] than just listening to you," Schwarzenegger tells O'Brien, citing one particular scene with the two brothers navigating a bathroom that is not a girly-man bathroom. "It was fantastic. It was so well written and I hope they do it. I really hope they do it. You still can do it."
Hans and Franz, Austrian bodybuilder brothers and the supposed cousins of Schwarzenegger, made their character debuts on SNL during season 13 and appeared in a recurring sketch called "Pumping Up With Hans & Franz," where they would taunt viewers and guests as "flappy, pathetic losers." Nealon conceived of the characters after he watched a Schwarzenegger TV interview where the action star discussed his exercise methods.
Schwarzenegger himself made two cameos in Hans and Franz sketches (first in 1988 and later in 1991) and also expressed an interest in co-producing and starring in the film adaptation that never came to be, a musical titled Hans and Franz: The Girlyman Dilemma.
O'Brien, a former SNL writer, previously revealed that the original plan was to write a cameo role for Schwarzenegger in the film he penned along with Nealon, Carvey, and Robert Smigel, but when he revisited the script, he found that Schwarzenegger was "in it more than anybody," adding that they in turn "hung the entire project" on the star.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Reggie Lewis/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank Arnold Schwarzenegger; Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon as Hans and Franz on 'SNL'
The timing just never worked out, as Nealon told EW earlier this year. "I guess when push came to shove, Arnold and these big movie stars have like six films in development at a time, then they have to decide what to do," Nealon said. "Arnold had just parodied himself in Last Action Hero, so he opted not to do this one."
In the podcast preview, O'Brien also shares details about another planned movie scene wherein Schwarzenegger's character attends a funeral and "starts doing lifts with the coffins."
Watch the video above, and check out Schwarzenegger's episode of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend in full once it drops Monday at midnight ET.
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